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Warren Buffett Joins Twitter Ahead of Shareholder Meeting

Updated to include Warren Buffett's first and hopefully not last, Tweet.

NEW YORK (
TheStreet) - Warren Buffett, the 82-year old head of investing conglomerate
Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.A - Get Report) has joined
Twitter, countering some notions that the 'Oracle of Omaha' and
International Business Machines(IBM) investor has little tech savvy.

At a Thursday afternoon
Fortune Magazine panel titled "Warren Buffett on Women and Work...and other Wisdom," Buffett made his first ever Tweet.

"Warren is in the house," Buffett wrote, using handle @WarrenBuffett.

"It means my family can no longer say I am lodged in the 19th century," Buffett said of his first Tweet, on a Fortune Magazine
streaming panel discussion with Pattie Sellers.

"It's pretty daring but I'll try," Buffett said as he was about to Tweet. "Does it bite?"

"We have set up an account," Debbie Bosanek, Buffett's assistant said in a brief phone interview with
TheStreet earlier on Thursday.

Bosanek had said Buffett's first tweet would center on the
Fortune Magazine panel on women and an article Buffett wrote, which is featured
on Fortune.com.

"I believe the first one will be about this article," Bosanek said. She also cautioned
TheStreet that all other accounts claiming to be Warren Buffett are fake.

"Any accounts out there that purport to be Warren Buffett are bogus," Bosanek said.

Joining Twitter may help Buffett counter reports he is decidedly tech unsavvy. Some media reports say Buffett doesn't have a computer in his Berkshire Hathaway office, whole others have noted the 'Oracle of Omaha's' problems with cell phones and voicemail.

Berkshire Hathaway has also avoided investing in tech sector giants like
Google(GOOG - Get Report),
Apple(AAPL) and
Facebook(FB - Get Report). Buffett has claimed he isn't able to fully evaluate such stocks.

"It is really going to be a good one this year," Bosanek said of the meeting, while advising investors to bring a coat as a result of unseasonably cold weather. "Everything else will be perfect."

Buffett's handle @WarrenBuffett gained nearly 10,000 followers within minutes of the 'Oracle's' first Tweet. His account was verified on the social network within about 15 minutes and now carries a blue checkmark.

Buffett's account states he is Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and provides a link to the company's
website .

Already, Buffett and his assistant Bosanek have a notable presence on the social network, which allows authors to make posts in 140-character increments and post links, photos and videos.

President Barack Obama used an op/ed written by Buffett in the
New York Times comparing his about 17% income tax rate as a billionaire to Bosanek's tax rate of over 30% to describe why millionaires and billionaires aren't paying their fair share of taxes.

Obama subsequently coined a piece of legislation called the Buffett Rule, which has taken off on Twitter under hashtag #BuffettRule.

On April 9, President Obama
referenced Buffett in a tweet advocating a higher tax rate for top income earners. Obama used the #BuffettRule hashtag.

"RT if you agree: Congress should pass the #BuffettRule next week so middle-class families don't pay a higher tax rate than millionaires," Obama wrote, in a tweet that was favorited 208 times and retweeted 5,218 times.

To be seen is whether President Obama and Buffett will follow each other on Twitter or whether retweets will come with more frequency.

Others have used Twitter to promote Buffett and Berkshire's upcoming shareholder meeting.

"Berkshire annual meeting or Kentucky Derby Day... For me, Berkshire by 10 lengths," Mario Gabelli, head of GAMCO Investors,
wrote on
Twitter.